Partnerships

Frameworks

Frameworks aims to raise the profile of five art collections that include world class historical, modern and contemporary fine and applied arts, all within an hour’s drive or a forty-minute train journey of each other.

Collecting Cultures: Creative Wiltshire

Wiltshire is both home and inspiration to all sorts of creative people; artists, sculptors, actors, writers, musicians to name but a few. Their mark on the county can often be seen in their work, but how much of it remains in Wiltshire for us all to view and enjoy?

The project Creative Wiltshire & Swindon aims to fill significant gaps in the collections at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre and at Wiltshire and Swindon’s Museums.

The scheme, a partnership led by Wiltshire Local Studies and including Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Swindon Central Library Local Studies and Wiltshire Conservation and Museum Advisory Service has received a £178,000 Heritage Lottery Fund Collecting Cultures grant towards the project totalling £213,550, enabling the acquisition of items.

“Although heritage collections in Wiltshire and Swindon already include some local artists (mainly paintings) and writers, the broader creative industry is not well represented and therefore remains a largely hidden part of our county and borough’s heritage. Yet sometimes their work forms or reflects part of our daily life, such as our home furnishings or gardens, the music we listen to and the art that responds to familiar landscapes, past and present.”

100 Stories

Swindon’s Create Studios has received £34,300 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project, to explore and celebrate a unique archive of letters from Swindon’s First World War POWs. Young people will work alongside artists and historians to research the story of Mary Slade, who eventually received an MBE for her work mobilising the town’s community to respond to the POWs’ need.

This is the second HLF project, which sees Create working in partnership with Swindon Museum & Art Gallery. Curator, Sophie Cummings said, “Back to Black and White” celebrated the social history photographic archive of Albert Beaney, and brought new audiences to Swindon Museum and Art Gallery to see some of his work alongside photos and films by young people trained by the team at Create Studios. We are very pleased to work in partnership again to introduce young people and new audiences to the important archives we hold on behalf of the town.”

Commenting on the latest Award, Create’s Artistic Director, Shahina Johnson said, “We are thrilled that the Heritage Lottery Fund have supported us to share this important Swindon POW story. Our purpose at Create is to use digital arts to help people gain new skills and bring communities together, and this project will help young people to do just that”.